Monday, January 21, 2013

I was at a
meeting last week discussing the problem of sexual abuse in the Orthodox
community, and someone raised the question of whether we are particularly
vulnerable to this problem. I don't know how our statistics match up with those
of broader society, but I do know we have two specific weaknesses which
predators can and do exploit:

1. We encourage
our children to develop close, trusting bonds with adult role models – family members,
rebbeim, camp counselors, shul rabbis, youth group leaders, and so on. I know
that the school I want for my kids is a school in which the rebbeim take a
personal interest in the kids, in which there are shabbatonim, in which there
are real relationships.

2. We load
our parents down with commitments to learning and boards and committees and
fundraisers. It's all we can do to pay attention on the rare occasions when our
children volunteer information, forget about initiating our own proactive
research to make sure they are not being drawn into trouble.

[Naturally, other communities have both of these, too. I am speaking about our community at the moment, though, and ignoring the question of whether we are "particularly vulnerable".]

Of course,
we also have a separate problem of our communal reluctance to report to the
police, whether due to an ancient fear of government authority or a very
current fear of erroneously trashing an innocent person. But these two other problems
are just as real and very dangerous.

What can we
do about these factors?

I don't
think we can stop encouraging our children to find role models; we need them,
parents cannot be the sole models in children's lives, certainly not when we
want to continue a communal religious and ethnic identity. So instead, we need
to make sure our institutions implement policies which block predators at every
step, whether at the hiring stage, or in implementing and monitoring protocols
governing staff conduct, or in holding periodic reviews of staff conduct. I
understand Torah uMesorah has a set of guidelines; perhaps that does the job, I
haven't seen it.

But more
than that, we as parents need to keep an active watch. Aside from training our
children to feel confident protecting themselves and to know their boundaries, we
need to ask questions and keep track. I know very well how difficult this is,
but it seems to me that it's part of our most basic responsibility toward our children.

20 comments:

I think we have forgotten that the obligation of education is really the parents', and that school, NCSY, or whatever are just our paid proxies. Much easier to say "I paid my check, let them do the hard work." If our high-school or college-age boys come home from yeshiva with their own plates because their shomer-shabbos parents' ones aren't kosher enough, then we're living in a world where parents don't have enough influence. Instead of "okay our kids will worship communal employees, let's just make sure we've filtered out the abusers", maybe the answer is "learn from communal employees, but the strongest relationship should be from the home"?

I was at an aufruf luncheon several years ago where the father of the chosson started off by saying, "Chazal say there are three partners in creating a human being -- father, mother, G-d; but when I see my son, and the way he and his friends learn Torah and daven, I say Rabbi XYZ [from an Israeli yeshiva] is a fourth partner." Everyone laughed, I cringed. (When allegations of abuse came out several years later against Rabbi XYZ ... well ...)

r'sr,nice to see another "kol korei bamidbar".I agree with your general point and specifically How many times do we hear "a year in israel will fix that". Ties nicely into "I don't know how our statistics match up with those of broader society" imho we don't collect data because - col. jessup was right - we can't handle the truth.KTJoel Rich

The job of parents is two fold. The idea of a father is to teach his children specific areas of expertise. it is the job of the mother to teach the children about life and the universe and everything else. It is for these two duties that parents must prepare themselves. Nowadays woman have given up the idea of the house wife as being the person who teaches her children about the universe, so this job could conceivably fall upon the father. But it is still a job that women do better if they are prepared for it.

I admit that the area of parenthood is one area that I disagree with the Talmud. It is my opinion that the Torah of Moshe gives a higher level of importance to honor of ones parents than is implied in the Talmud. A example of how parents are relegated to a position of insignificance is how the verse in Proverbs, "Listen my son to the command of your father, and don't leave the teaching of your mother." is explained, It is hard to see what is unclear about this verse. On the other hand I can see that not all parents are fit. But then it would suffice to do what the Chazal do anyway and say one does not need to honor a parent that is unfit.

It would be wrong to ignore the fact that having large families makes it impossible for parents to give each kid enough attention. While my husband and I do have full time jobs, we have deliberately avoided volunteer opportunities to try to give our kids the attention they need. Unfortunately, I still don't feel like it's enough. It's not fundraisers and board meetings that make it hard for parents to focus on their kids; it's the fact that while parents may be able to focus on the needs of 4 kids, the 5th and 6th kid may be inadvertently shortchanged.

When parents have a bunch of little kids, it's easier (even though it seems very hard); no kid is going to be scarred for life because they had to wait a few hours for a needed diaper change. Parents like myself didn't realize how much we'd have to give each and every older child. Consequently, there is no warning that there are "too many" kids until it's too late.

Naturally, I'm not saying I have "too many" kids; I'm saying there are "too many" for me to feel that I am doing enough for each. At least they're clothed and fed.

r'tesyaa,IMHO an important point but one rarely iiuc discussed at the proper time. At least in public (with rare exceptions like r' h schachter) it's more likely -HKB"H will take care(maybe they are right-but bderech hateva I'm not convinced).KTJoel Rich

Shalom/AnonyJoel/Adam-I agree that parents should be more than protectors, but I disagree with the idea that they should be that dominant a force in the development of an adolescent. Human beings have a natural, healthy inclination to rebel and form their own identities as they emerge from their pre-teen years, and I believe the great majority of parents are not suited to be the exclusive or near-exclusive influence at that stage.

AnonyJoel-You might take a look at the mefarshim to Yeshayah 40:3; I believe it is "kol korei, bamidbar panu..."

It's not so easy for parents to know if a school is/was shielding a molester on staff, or has unwittingly hired a molester terminated without full explanation by his previous school administration. Some schools thought to be reputable have terminated molesters without tagging them as such, a gross abdication of moral responsibility. In some quarters, there is a culture of "let's cover up for each other and leave people outside the clique in the dark".

May I suggest one further missing factor: there is a desire on the part of many of us to believe and want to portray the Orthodox lifestyle as an ideal. Anything that disputes such an image tends to get attacked, ignored or pushed aside. The issue of molestation is just such an example. We don't want to believe the school rebbe would do such a thing. He's Orthodox!

Similar to what Garnel says, the abusers are often people with influence and respect in the community. Even among people who can admit the possibility of abuse in the frum community, if forced to choose between the word of Rav Ploni and a child, they will choose Rav Ploni and assume the child misinterpreted something innocent that Rav Ploni did or said. Indeed, the child (or adult abuse survivor) may assume that he or she was not abused, that Rav Ploni must have done something innocent which they foolishly misunderstood and that even to think Rav Ploni would do such a terrible thing is itself a sin.

Here in the UK there is an ongoing police investigation into high profile sexual predators at the BBC going back to the 70s. It has only come to light now because Jimmy Savile, the DJ, TV presenter and charity fundraiser at the centre of the allegations is now dead; during his lifetime whenever anyone went to the police or people high up at the BBC, it was always a celebrity's word against a teenager's. Inevitably, they believed the celebrity, especially as a lot of people (his BBC bosses, the charities he raised money for) had a vested interest in avoiding scandal and keeping him working or fundraising for them. Even after Saville's death the BBC refused to broadcast a news report into the claims until another channel brought it into the open.

The Orthodox community certainly has a different kind of celebrity, but the outcome is the same. People with some kind of power or reputation, however small, are always going to find it easier to be believed in a 'your word against mine' situation and institutions under threat will always have a vested interest in covering up abuse.

I am confused that none of the comments (so far) really answer your question. Who, reviewing events in New York, London, Israel and even Toronto in the past few years can possibly deny that the O community is indeed 'more vulnerable' to child and sexual abuse? And it is because of one disgraceful reason: the Orthodox community leaders are tolerant, permissive and even supportive of such behaviour, strongly protecting perpetrators and viciously attacking and hounding victims. The result is that the O community and its institutions is a honeypot for predators of all kinds. I should not need to elaborate. Contributing factors to dysfunction is the 'tsnius' madness, now totally out of control; the 'mesirah' madness, now offering protection from the law to all criminals (and the idea that the community can enforce its own rules is laughable); and the open disdain for all 'secular' standards and processes. Mr Saunders (correctly) gives the Jimmy Saville case as an example -- but he should wait until next week, when UK Channel 4 will be screening an expose of hidden child abuse and molestation in London's Haredi community. I am told it will be explosive.

Bob -- I have no concrete evidence regarding how severe/widespread the phenomenon is compared to other groups. Anecdotal evidence is not evidence. But there are clear indications that when it does happen -- the perpetrators in Jewish religious institutions are far less likely to be held responsible, let alone punished. That may be true of other minority groups as well. Knowing that, predators are likely to be bolder and more active in those settings.

Anon1-True; I was thinking of the parents educating their children, in an on-going way, in terms of their boundaries and relationships, and monitoring (from an appropriate distance) as those relatiosnhips develop.

Garnel, Daniel-Quite logical, and quite true.

Educator-I have a very hard time wrapping my mind around the "supporting" idea. I realize these words probably sound ridiculously naive, but is it possible that a human being would knowingly support a predator?

With respect, many of the accused sexual predators - of both boys and girls - whose cases have been publicised in recent years (e.g. Mondrowitz, Kolko, Weingarten, Weberman, Halpern, the Melbourne cases, plus those more recently accused) etc) all enjoyed protection from rabbis and communities which allowed them to escape the legal consequences of their alleged acts. In all of the cases quoted above, the victims were also hounded and ostracized by their communities. I am a little taken aback at your comments.

... and here is a report of the upcoming UK Channel 4 documentary on child abuse in London's charedi community, alleging that the programme will feature a video recording of the head of the Haredi Bet Din telling a victim not to go to the police: http://bit.ly/Vmpet7

Educator-My problem is not really one of disbelief, it's of difficulty comprehending. I can comprehend that a predator will knowingly support another predator - someone who has committed himself to criminality will support a criminal. But how can someone who personally isn't a twisted predator knowingly support someone else's molestation? That's what I don't understand.

If it's possible to be a predator, it's possible to support one knowingly. However, it's hard to say that this or that support is knowing, because the supporter may have found a way to fool himself to rationalize the support. Facts are often pushed aside for emotional or utilitarian reasons.